Relocating gas stop tap/and maybe meter

Blue_bell_20

We bought a house in April. We then found out the gas meter doesn’t turn on and called up BG, they sent an engineer a month later. The engineer couldn’t turn the gas off to change the meter and called the gas network engineer. They promptly turned up, explained the stop tap is inaccessible without using pliers and fiddling behind the sink so they have said the best course is to relocate it outside. There’s an undetermined amount of time to wait for this to be done now. They couldn’t give a date.

My concern is that they said they would dig up some of the road to find the pipe. We live on a small private road where 7-8 houses need to pass by our house to get to theirs. Has anyone had this work done before and have you had to explain it to neighbours? We will be cutting off their access by car for x amount of time. Also I guess we need to pay to fix the road afterwards, unless the gas network also repair the road. 

I think the gas network person is moving the stop tap outside, then we need to call BG back up after to change the meter. No idea if the meter stays inside or will also be relocated. It takes hours to reach anyone on the phone for BG. 

To summarise, I’m anxious about blocking the neighbours road access. Has anyone had this work done before and is there anything we need to be aware of? 

Robin9

JUst drop a note to your neighbours and explain the situation as you see it to give them advance warning - then when you know a date a follow up. We did it out of courtesy when we had the builders in.

Then when its all over a BBQ  or mince pies.

I wold expect you to be paying for all of this

Blue_bell_20

Robin9 said:

JUst drop a note to your neighbours and explain the situation as you see it to give them advance warning - then when you know a date a follow up. We did it out of courtesy when we had the builders in.

Then when its all over a BBQ  or mince pies.

I wold expect you to be paying for all of this.

That’s a good idea, explaining now and then updating closer to the time once we know more. 

We don’t really have a garden so a bbq might not work, but chocolates or cakes could be a good idea thanks.

I’m probably over thinking it and they will be ok with not being able to access their houses by car for the day, since it will be a one off and know ahead of time.  Also if neighbours have an issue with the specific date we can try to talk to the gas network.

brewerdave

You do realise that you will be responsible for ALL the costs? Which will probably £thousands not £hundreds !!

MWT

Also if the work involves some speculative digging to 'locate the pipe' I'd suggest that only one day of disruption is a little hopeful...

Robin9

Typically you can expect a crew to dig on day one, gas fitters on day two and tarmac crew on day three (hopefully) - excavations will be made safe and you should have full access at the end of every day.

Is an option to revamp your kitchen ?

Blue_bell_20

brewerdave said:

You do realise that you will be responsible for ALL the costs? Which will probably £thousands not £hundreds !!

So I think they said they are covering the cost of it (and due to that we are at the back of the list after paying customers). 

Its being moved from just inside the wall to just outside the wall. It’s inaccessible and they want it to be accessible. To be fair for a safety aspect we would also like it to be accessible. At the minute the gas tap cannot be turned off safely/quickly, they said if there’s an issue we should just leave the house if there’s a gas issue. 

I mean if worst case and we get a bill for thousands we will pay it. 

We will keep some money back to make the road good. 

Ectophile

If you don't mind paying them, your regional gas distributor should be able to organise everything (except for a new meter). It will take several days.

In my case, it only involved digging up my driveway. First, a guy turned up and dropped off a pile of barriers and cones. Next day, the diggers turned up. A few days later, the pipe layers appeared, along with the gas fitter in the afternoon. Then I had to wait for the diggers to come back and fill in the trench, and repair the drive. Finally the barriers guy turned up to take them away.

brewerdave

Ectophile said:

In my case, it only involved digging up my driveway. First, a guy turned up and dropped off a pile of barriers and cones. Next day, the diggers turned up. A few days later, the pipe layers appeared, along with the gas fitter in the afternoon. Then I had to wait for the diggers to come back and fill in the trench, and repair the drive. Finally the barriers guy turned up to take them away.

Had similar with my water supplier when the Council had buried my stopcock. Crew one to locate ,crew two to excavate, crew three to install meter and new stopcock then backfill then crew four to remake paving and tarmac. Took 4 days spread over nearly two weeks!! All contractors so very little cost control !!

C_Mababejive

You are lucky they are not billing you for the cost. That valve would have been accessible when originally installed but someone has made it inaccessible due to development,fitting cupboards,whatever.

The people who undertake this work are not new to this and will be able to manage the traffic and access situation in your road.